Self-Driving Tickets

Here's a basic issue for self-driving vehicle regulation at the local level. Should they get traffic tickets? If so, should they be judged exactly like human drivers or given some leeway given the state of the technology?

Parking tickets are an easy case. The harder case is a moving violation. I am unclear on the extent to which a self-driving car can recognize that a police officer wants to pull the car over. That may make giving such a car a ticket practically impossible or not worth the effort.

Even assuming that such a ticket is possible simply by taking down a license plate number, how should enforcement discretion be exercised? Many driving situations flow from social cues. There's a funeral going by, so you pull over. An accident occurred and people are seeking to help, so you stop. Self-driving vehicles may not be able (or may not be as good at) identifying these out-of-the-ordinary circumstances. Should they be ticketed or cut some slack?

These are almost always local questions on which reasonable people could disagree. The same goes for many other aspects of self-driving car regulation, as I'll get into later.